The present invention relates to a storage system, and more particularly to techniques effective for application to remote management businesses of a storage system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,721 issued to Ismael et al. teaches management communication between a manager and a Java virtual machine at an agent.
In remote operation of the contents and configuration of services which a storage system provides to users, it is necessary to provide a means for overwriting a configuration information database of the storage system. Conventional means for accessing data includes an access method by using a general purpose simple network management protocol (SNMP), an access method by creating a specific protocol and defining a specific interface for accessing a database to make an application program access the database by using the interface, or other access methods. Such an application program uses a program distributed and installed in each manager in advance. The program is allowed to be used only by those authenticated by an ID and password. This authentication mechanism is generally implemented beforehand in the application program.
(a) Technical Issues of Using SNMP Protocol
In the interface method of providing with a storage configuration information database by using SNMP, the storage configuration information database is required to be converted into a management information database (MIB) whose data is read/written by using simple commands (such as Get, Get/Next, and Set) defined by SNMP. The amount of storage configuration information is increasing remarkably nowadays. With the interface method, an overhead of a communication process time becomes large and the process speed lowers. Even simple information read/write requires to be controlled by using a complicated combination of commands on an application side. This control is not easy and the number of development processes increases, posing severe technical issues. Furthermore, since a general purpose interface is used, there is a fear that third parties may read/write data by using illegal programs.
A security function such as authentication is required to be implemented beforehand in an application program, which may increase illegal accesses. Management by using an SNMP protocol is associated with disadvantages in terms of performance and security.
(b) Technical Issues of Using Dedicated Protocol
Setting a dedicated protocol has advantages in terms of performance and security. However, an application for processing data results in a protocol dependent system. There arises therefore a problem that managers using different protocols cannot use the system in a versatile manner.
Further, it is necessary to create and distribute an application program for the operating system of each computer. This poses a technical issue that a large man power is necessary for implementation, maintenance, management and the like of a storage management system.